Margaret Sherbourne

Margaret Dorothea Sherbourne née Willis (3 October 1791 – 6 November 1846) was a British plant enthusiast and gardener. She grew many tropical plants in her garden and a genus Sherbournia was named in her honour.

Margaret Dorothea Willis was the first daughter of Richard Willis of Halsnead, Prescot, Lancashire (now in Merseyside). In 1821 she married the forty-five years older Charles Robert Sherbourne of Hurst House, Prescot, who died in 1836. She collected and grew plants in Hurst House including a number of tropical species. She began to correspond with Sir William Hooker at Kew from 1842. She grew a plant from Sierra Leone that flowered in her garden and from which it was described and named as Sherbournia foliosa after her by George Don[1] but this was later called as Sherbournia calycina.[2][3]

References

  1. ↑ Hepper, F. N. (1963). "Plants of the 1957-58 West African Expedition: III". Kew Bulletin. 16 (3): 451. doi:10.2307/4114691.
  2. ↑ Nelmes, Ernest; Cuthbertson, William, eds. (1931). Curtis's Botanical Magazine Dedications 1827-1927. Bernard Quaritch. pp. 63–64.
  3. ↑ Sonké, B.; Pauwels, L. (2005). "Révision du genre africain Sherbournia (Rubiaceae, Gardenieae)". Systematics and Geography of Plants. 75 (1): 61–91. ISSN 1374-7886.